#48 Sin, si, sitt and sine - correct grammar can save family drama! [grammatikk]

Welcome And The Big Confusion

Hello. You have probably wondered, or maybe you haven't. Maybe you've never heard about Hans Henness Sin Sit Sina. If you haven't, maybe it's the right time, maybe it's not. Depends how far you've come on your Norwegian journey. But I will tell you the whole story. I know many of you struggle with the difference between what we call the reflexive and non-reflexive possessives in third person. Before we go into the details, and maybe you already know the details, you know the theory, but you don't really get it. You never really manage to get it.

Why Third Person Gets Messy

Let's go back to the start. Why why? Why do we have something called reflexive and non-reflexive possessives in third person? So if you have no idea what I'm talking about, what we're gonna learn how to say is her, his, and their, and also its ones. But we can skip that for now. I want you to understand the concept here. I want you to understand theory behind this. Because when I want if I say my car, it's very easy. It's min beal or beal and min. Right? It's it's it's not it's quite straightforward. If I want to say my house, it's mit who's who house is neutral. That's all you need to know. The thing that I own, which gender does it have? Okay, or is it plural? Mina venid vanana mina my friends. If this is completely new to you, then maybe you should study this first. Like how do you use the di the possessives my, your, our. Get used to that first, how they change according to the gender of the thing that you own, and then come back to this episode when you feel comfortable with that. It will make it much easier. If you already feel that you master that, okay, this is the moment to talk seriously. So when I say third person, what does that actually mean? Third person is or are the people that we do not necessarily see. We talk about them. He, she, they, it, one, people in general. Whereas first person, it's the closest you can get to people. You are a part of it. That's the first person. So whenever you say I, you know who you are talking about. It's very obvious. It's the person who's talking who says I, that's the person you are referring to. When you say you, you plural, you singular, do, dara, you singular, do, you plural, dara, it's the people you are talking to. And that also is very obvious because you know who you're talking to. So here there's very it's very difficult to have any confusion. But when we talk about the third person, when I say hun or hun, he and she, that can refer to so many people. That can be half of the planet. Or when I say di, they, that can be the whole planet. Uh, or two of them. Two people. So it can refer to so many different people. And when I say, so when I use the possessive, the possessive corresponding to these third people, third person people, that can also be confusing. For instance, when I say he likes his car, is it his own car or is it somebody else's car? Right? Of course, in the context we normally understand, and that is probably why in English that you do not differentiate between his own and then another man's car. Same thing with she and they, right? They like their car. Is it their own car or is it that it's some other people's car? She loves her job. Does she well? Normally you don't love another woman's job. Well, maybe you could love another woman's job, why not? So the question is always the same. Who does it actually belong to? When I say I like my car, my only refers to me, the subject. It cannot refer to anything else. But if I say you like my job, then it's not referring back to the subject. So you see, my can be both reflexive and non-reflexive. It can point back at the person in the start. When I say I like my job, it refers back to I. But if I say you like my job, well then it doesn't refer back to you. It doesn't belong to you. And we don't have to differentiate. But this is why in Norwegian we do differentiate between

Reflexive Versus Non-Reflexive Possessives

his and her and their, whether it's their own, his own, her own, or somebody else's, because it can be misunderstood, right? It can point back, but it can also point at someone else. So to be, at least in this case, be sure of who we're talking about, we have two different ways of expressing possession. We can use a reflexive possessive, sin, si, sitt and sine, or we can use the non reflexive one, and they're always not reflexive. Hans, hennes and deres. His, her, their. And I'm only gonna focus on these three now because those are the ones we use the most, but just remember that we can also use the reflexives to point back at it. For instance, the dog, uh, the house, um or ones, people in general. Alright. So, what do you need to know? There are two things you need to know about sin, si, sitt, sine that are essential for you to really understand how to use them.

Two Rules That Explain Everything

The first thing to know, they do not mean anything out of context. If I just give you the word sin, for instance, and I ask you what does sin mean? If you don't have the context, you cannot know what sin means. Because it can mean different things. It can, for instance, mean her own, his own, and their own. It can mean all three. The same thing goes with the other three. See can mean all of the three, his own, her own, their own. Sit can mean all of the three, her own, his own, their own. Sina can also mean all of the three, his own, her own, and their own. Okay? It can mean all of them. And if I don't have any context, I have no idea what it means. So I need you to put it in a context. And the four of them can only refer back to the subject in the same sentence. It cannot point back at something that was in the sentence before or five sentences ago. It has to be the subject in the same sentence. Now, what do I mean by subject? Subject is the what can I say? The person. Um doesn't have to be a person, but to make it easier, let's say it's a person, the person who's doing something or who is described, that's the subject. So if for instance if I say "hun liker bilen sin", then hun is the subject but she likes her car her own car okay. So it's the person liking something if I say "han ser på mobilen sin" he looks at his cell phone his own cell phone. So you see I use the same word sin in both cases "Hun liker bilen sin". She likes her own car. "Han ser på mobilen sin." He looks at his own phone. So "sin" meant two different things in the two different sentences. As I mentioned, those are the two most important things to know. Without any context, I have no idea what they mean. And they always reflect back on the subject. Which means that if I'm talking about something that does not belong to the subject, and the subject has to be third person. Remember that. It has to be he, she, or they. If it doesn't belong to he, she, or they, then you cannot use sin, si, sitt, or sine. Okay? Are we good that far? Okay, next

Choosing Sin, Si, Sitt, Sine

thing that is important to remember, because we have four different forms. So how do I know which one to use? Should I use sin? Should I use sin, sitt, si og sine? If you already know how to inflect my and your, this shouldn't be too complicated. So sin is used when you talk about something being owned that is masculine. If it's if it's feminine, you use si, for instance, lampa si, boka si. If it's neutral or neuter, you use sitt for instance "huset sitt" " glasset sitt", if it's plural you use sine for instance "glassene sine" or "vennene sine". And that's it. You don't take into account at all if the subject is more than one person, for instance. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the thing that is owned or the thing that somebody has, which gender is it? If it's singular and if it's plural, that's all that counts. All right? I know if you have a Latin language. So when can I not use

When Reflexives Are Not Allowed

Cin sitt and sine? Let's look at a very, very simple sentence "mora henness er her" her mom is here. "Mora hennes er her" Here I used hennes. I didn't say "mura si", why is that? Remember the first rule that I told you? You cannot use sin si sitt sine in a context.... Well, that was not what I said, but the consequence of the first rule, since I don't know what sin se sitt sine means, then if I put it in a context that doesn't help me understand what it means in the same sentence, okay, forget about everything that was before. It doesn't matter what was before, I cannot refer back to whatever was before. So if I put it in a context where I have no idea what it means, then I have no idea what it means. So if I say "mora si er her", I don't know whose mother I'm talking about. It is her, is it her own mother, his own mother, their own mother, one's own mother, its own mother? I don't know what "si" means because it has nothing to refer back to. In this case, "si" is inside of the subject, it is part of the subject. Okay, the who I am talking about. Who is something? Who is here? Her mom. That's the subject. That doesn't work. But I could say "Hun liker mora si" She likes her own mother "Hun liker mora si." Why does that work? Who's the subject here? Who's liking her own mother? Hun! Hun liker mora si. Here "si" comes after the subject, after the verb, it comes in the end. It's a part of the object, if that helps you. Here you can use "si" because here I know what it means. I know that it belongs to "Hun". If the subject was han, "han li ker mora si", he likes his own mom, well then it would mean "his own". So here I have a context that helps me understand. Now these are simple sentences, and this might be more than enough information for you at this point. If you feel that you've had it, you might want to save this episode for later. If you feel like curious

Clauses Change The Subject Target

to know a little bit more, I'm gonna go to a little bit more complicated sentence. Because sometimes we have sentences that have smaller sentences inside of themselves or clauses. And when we do have that, remember sin, see, sit, sin always points back at the subject in the clause it is in. Or a sentence, if you prefer. And when I say sentence, what do you look for? If I say clause, what do you look for? You look for a subject and a verb. That's what you look for. Whenever you have a subject and a verb, then you have a clause or a new sentence. Uh the word clause just means that it's a sentence inside of a sentence, basically. Or you might have heard the word led setting. So lead setting is a clause inside of a bigger sentence, or a sentence inside of a bigger sentence that depends on that bigger sentence in order to exist or to make sense. An example of that could be yai ad gla fad hard. I am happy because you are here. In this sentence, for di introduces the clause, and you can see there are two subjects. You have yai, yai ad gla, and do do add had. So you have two subjects. Now imagine we have a sentence like this, where you have two subjects. You have to pay attention to where sin sea sitt sin is placed in order to know what it refers back to. One example is "Hun er glad for di dattera går med lua si" she's happy because her daughter is wearing her hat "Hun er glad for di dattera går mes lua si". Now whose hat is the daughter wearing? Her own or her mother's? Both make sense, both are logical. Right? Both could make sense, of course, in the context you would probably know. But without the context, it's very hard to know. But in Norwegian, you will know for sure. When I say "lua si", I know that it refers back to the subject in the same clause, which is the daughter, the closest one. That's it. So if I say, I know for sure that it's not belonging to the mom, but to the daughter. So how can I say the same thing, but I want the person I'm talking to to understand that I'm talking about ma the mom's hat. Listen to this "Hun er glad fordi dattera går med lua "hennes". "Hennes", not "si". Of course it doesn't necessarily have to point back at the mom. It could be someone completely different, it could be the neighbor's hat, who knows? Right? In the that in this case, you can only tell by the context. The only thing we can be sure of, 100% sure of, is that it does not belong to the daughter. It does not belong to the subject. That's the only thing we know for certain. But when you do use "si", as in the example I gave you, then we know for sure, 100% it belongs to the daughter. So when you use reflexive pronoun, you can be sure that you know who it belongs to. When you use the non-reflexive pronouns, hans, henes, deres - his, her, their. You do not you're never one hundred percent sure who it belongs to. So that's the beauty of C sin si sitt sine. You can know for sure who it belongs to, or whom it belongs to, I guess. I know that understanding the theory of this is not necessarily going to help you always to get it right. And also there are sentences where it's not very straightforward, like the examples that I gave you, and where even Norwegians make mistakes. Because, as in any language, and maybe Norwegian in particular, when we speak, we don't follow any grammar, we follow our intuition, and that is what I hope for you this will become with time. So very few Norwegians know how this works. They don't know the theory behind this, they just feel when it feels right. Here are some sentences that I would like you to um

Practice Test And Listener Prompt

where I would like you to fill in. No, I'm you know what? I will give you two sentences and I want you to tell me the difference between the two, and they will be easy. Promise. Straightforward, no clauses. If you get this, you are on the right path. Okay, so here they are. What's the difference between these two sentences? "Han kysser kona si." He kisses his wife versus "Han kysser kona hans." He kisses his wife. Let me know in the comment field wherever you listen to this podcast. If you have any feedback, please let me know. Takk for i dag! Vi høres :)